BETTER DRUG TREATMENT SUGGESTS TURNAROUND

Baltimore: As Effectiveness And Availability Increase, City's Dismal
Health Indicators Improve.

THERE IS some good news in these dismal days: Baltimore's shockingly
Third World-like health statistics have begun to improve.

Drug-related emergency room visits, which were the nation's highest,
are down 19 percent.

Record-high infant mortality rates have dropped significantly.
Tuberculosis rates, teen births and all types of venereal diseases
also have decreased.

"Something different is going on in Baltimore," says Health
Commissioner Peter L. Beilenson. He thinks the improving trend is due
to more effective drug treatment.

He's probably right. Since 1997, funding for drug treatment in the
city has soared from $17 million to $55 million. As slots for addicts
have increased, the city has tightened its monitoring of treatment
providers.

Dr. Beilenson and his staff now scrutinize the effectiveness of all
39 treatment providers in weekly meetings.

When one ineffective provider failed to correct its deficiencies
after 12 weeks of warnings, its funding was canceled.

This review process is welcome. It has reaffirmed City Hall's control
over Baltimore Substance Abuse Systems, a quasi-public agency that
contracts providers.

Two years ago, this newspaper ran a series of scathing editorials
about BSAS's shortcomings, urging reforms that would make it more
effective. New leadership, structural reforms and a tighter focus on
benchmarks have transformed the agency.

Addiction to heroin, cocaine and alcohol remain huge problems in
Baltimore City. But more effective treatment is believed to be among
the factors that have contributed to a significant decline in
homicides over the past 12 months.

Infant mortality, too, is directly linked to drug use. And
Baltimore's syphilis infections, the highest in the nation four years
ago, were a crack-for-sex epidemic.

Baltimore runs one of the nation's biggest taxpayer-funded treatment
programs against addiction (San Francisco's is of equal size). Their
success can only improve the city's chances for neighborhood and
business turnarounds that are so long overdue.